By Diana Britton
With the blustery arctic winds and merciless snow barreling down on his back, Phantsok Dhamchoe proceeded to cross over the world’s tallest mountain range, the Himalayas. But as he leaves his home country of Tibet behind, ahead of him Dhamchoe is paralyzed by fear — Chinese military guards could be lurking around any and every corner as he makes his way down the mountain.
With the recent Tibetan New Year, these memories of escaping to the U.S. are in the forefront of Dhamchoe’s mind.
As Dhamchoe tells his story of crossing over the Tibetan border into Nepal, tears well up in the eyes of his interpreter, Jamyang Gyatso. “I saw three kids and a mother that died,” Dhamchoe says through his interpreter, as now both men struggle to hold back their tears.
To Dhamchoe, 38, the Tibetan wilds are a far cry from the condominium-laden streets of Crown Heights in Brooklyn just east of Prospect Park, where he now lives in an apartment with four other Tibetans. Dhamchoe’s neighborhood along Franklin Avenue is a hub for seven other Tibetan families and immigrants from Mongolia, Japan, Puerto Rico and Guinea.
When Dhamchoe first moved to Brooklyn through the encouragement of a fellow Tibetan, he says many aspects of Brooklyn reminded him of his hometown in Tibet.
A small man with a round, smiling face, Dhamchoe can often be found wandering the trails of the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Watching the fish swim freely and listening to the sounds of the birds reminds him of the peace and solitude of Tibet. He says the freedom of these creatures makes him grateful for the free life he now lives in Brooklyn, away from the fear and persecution he felt in Tibet.
Dhamchoe says he feels comfortable in Brooklyn because while there are so many different people here, everyone is treated equally. Dhamchoe has found that people in restaurants, on the subway and in the workplace do not treat him any differently.
“They treat you the same. If you’re uneducated, they don’t laugh at you. They help you and teach you,” he says. He says the people of Brooklyn are more relaxed, friendly and not hurried.
Dhamchoe has been calling Brooklyn his home for the past five years. “Brooklyn is a second home for me,” he says, “the first time in my life when I felt freedom.”
Coney Island has also been a second home for Dhamchoe. He says his summer days spent swimming at Coney Island are reminiscent of his summers in Tibet, when his family would go swimming in the Nyakchu River right near his home.
While the river water in Tibet was clean enough to drink, he says the water at Coney Island was too salty for him. “Not so tasty,” he says.
On Tuesday nights, Dhamchoe can also be found in a room full of other Tibetans at the International Center in Manhattan’s Lower West Side, where Dhamchoe takes English classes twice a week. Joe Lamb, one of the teachers, has an interesting teaching style in which he talks about anything and everything, while the students repeat in English.
“If I get a visa, I’ll go to China,” Lamb says to distinguish between the present and future of “to go.” Dhamchoe has his own version: “If I get visa, I’ll go to Tibet,” he repeats.
Dhamchoe grew up in a rural village in Eastern Tibet with his parents and three sisters. He says he was inspired by the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Because of the hostile relationship between Tibet and the Chinese government, which has occupied the territory since 1959, the two regions disagree in recognizing the same spiritual leaders.
“In China, you have religious rights. But (in Tibet), no rights. You have to do what they tell you,” Dhamchoe says.
In 1999, a friend went to India and brought Dhamchoe tapes of the Dalai Lama’s teachings. When Dhamchoe made copies and distributed them among Tibetan citizens, the Chinese government arrested him. He was held in a prison in Nog Che County in Kham, a region in Eastern Tibet not far from where Dhamchoe grew up.
As he describes the soldiers’ interrogation methods, Dhamchoe makes slashing motions on his arm with one of his hands. They told him he would be freed if he “accepted” what he had done, but Dhamchoe says when he refused, they would beat him, tie him up and deny him food.
After three months in prison, Dhamchoe’s father deposited money for him, allowing his son limited freedom outside the prison walls. During that time, he escaped and rode on horseback for two days to his home. He stayed there for a month with his family before heading to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Dhamchoe says he met some Tibetan businesspeople there, who helped him get across the treacherous, windy and snow-packed Tibetan border over the Himalayan Mountains.
“Lot(s) of kids were dying during that period because of the mountains and heavy snow,” he says. Dhamchoe says many lost their hands and eyes to frostbite along the way, while he struggled with his own partial blindness caused by the prison beatings he endured.
Once he crossed over the border into Nepal, he then had to walk for two more days to a bus that took the new refugees to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, where the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is.
The UNHCR sent Dhamchoe to the Karnataka region of India, outside a city called Hubli. In 2002, he met an interpreter who was part of a South Indian monastery called Gomang. The interpreter helped Dhamchoe get a Chinese passport and a plane ticket to the U.S. “You go back. Freedom,” the interpreter told him.
On April 15, 2002, Dhamchoe arrived in the U.S. and began seeking asylum status through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. He says sometimes that organization grants refugees asylum status after only one month, but his case was sent to an immigration court. After two more years in court, Dhamchoe finally proved his story to an immigration judge and was granted asylum in the U.S.
Dhamchoe says he hopes to go back to Tibet one day to see his family and take care of his parents once he gains U.S. citizenship. He also has three sisters, two of whom are married and have children. He says that while it is hard to meet Tibetan women in New York, he hopes to get married and someday start a family of his own.
In the New York State Population Statistics Report for the 2006 fiscal year, Tibet was not recognized as a country of origin for the state’s asylum seekers. However, according to the same report, China accounted for 260 asylum seekers in New York, more than any other country listed that year.
Dhamchoe recalls an incident when a Chinese student at the International Center asked him where he was from. When he told him the city in Tibet, the Chinese man had to look it up on the Internet. “He said, ‘This is a Chinese city,’” Dhamchoe says.
Tibetan history and culture are not included in the Chinese education, Dhamchoe says. He adds that many Americans don’t know what is really going on in Tibet because of the lack of international journalists there and the longstanding economic relationship between the U.S. and China.
Despite the pain and tears caused by his ordeal with the Chinese government, Dhamchoe says he is now at peace and doesn’t feel the same persecution for being different, that he once felt in Tibet. “Nobody says, ‘You’re Tibetan. You’re different.’ I’m free,” he says.
Dhamchoe beams with pride as he shows off his shiny Tibetan winter coat to an admiring fellow student at the International Center. Its outer shell is a pale green silk, embroidered with beautiful designs, while the inner shell is a thick layer of sheepskin. “This is Tibetan winter clothes,” he says, “This keeps me warm in Tibet.”
